Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/41

 

where he could find the nearest justice of the peace ? A bandy. legged individual, with a hump-back, and a strange obliquity in both his eyes, who was drinking beer, came forward immediately, and said he was the ' squire. The traveller looked as if he thought his lordship had a strange taste in selecting the magistrates ; but, telling the crooked functionary that he might have occasion to call on him in a short time, set forth in the direction indicated to him, to find the person he was in search of. He marched at a round pace ; but not so fast that others were not on the ground before him. Several persons who had heard what had passed, scudded off in different ways for the same point, announcing as they ran, in half-breathless accents, to every one they met, that a sheriff had come for Mr. Tompkins. A party kept at no great distance behind the stranger, among whom was the justice himself, who seemed disposed not to be out ofthe way, should his services be demanded. As Mr. Tompkins, who was sitting in the porch of the widow's house, reading a volume of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1749, and had just exhaled a cloud of many-coloured smoke, was watching the delicate spiral curve of sapphire hue, which did not intermingle with the other vapour, but wound through it like the Jordan through the Dead Sea, (to give the coup de grace to a figure worn to tatters, and beggarly tatters too,) I say, as Mr. Tompkins lifted up his eyes and beheld the prospect before him, he was aware of a man in riding trim, lifting the latch of the widow's little court-yard ; behind whom a small erowd, headed by the cross- eyed and cross-legged Coke of the parish, advanced in a huddle, all earnestly gazing upon himself. And, glancing around, through the rose-bushes , lilac-trees, and pales which surrounded the modest enclosure in which he was ensconced, he beheld, peeping and chuckling, the quaint and dirty faces of divers boys and girls, with dishevelled hair and goblin expressions ; and he marvelled what in the world was the matter. The stranger entered the cottage-yard, and touching his hat respectfully, asked if Mr. Tompkins was at home ? " That is my name, Sir," said the gentleman. " I beg your pardon, Sir," said the stranger. " I have been mistaken. I was looking for another gentleman." So saying, he again touched his hat and retired, looking rather surlily upon the people who gathered around him , and followed in a cluster his retiring footsteps. My tale does not lead me to tell how he got along with them, nor do I know

more than what I have heard, which was, that having proceeded